LIGHT BULB TYPES

Incandescent light bulbs (the traditional ones) heat a filament at a sufficient temperature to produce light. However, more than 90% of the received electricity is transformed into heat and less than 10% into light; that would mean that the light bulb is of low-efficiency.

Halogene light bulbs operate the same way and they are more efficient than incandescent bulbs.

Fluorescent bulbs produce a light resulting from the ionization of a gas (mercury steam). The low consumption bulbs work exactly the same way. In fact, they are also called compact fluorescents. They consume an average of five times less energy than the incandescent bulbs to produce the same amount of light.

The LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are electronic devices, very common in state indicators of many devices (green on light, red stand by light), traffic lights, flashlights, bicycle lightings, etc... They produce a light resulting from the ionization of solid matter. The present ones have similar efficiency to that of the fluorescents, but much more efficient prototypes are being produced. They are very robust and can last up to 100.000 hours.